Hi, I've been arguing alot recently with some religious git who has started claiming that this irreducible complexity theory completely fucks up the theory of evolution. I have no idea how to argue the point with him as Im not even 100% sure what 'irreducible complexity' actually is. I take it to mean that there are proceses in nature which could not have evolved naturally as if you were to reduce them in some way they would not work at all. Looking at it the other way therefore, these processes could not possibly have been built up gradually by evolution since a process which does nothing is not a survival aid and therefore would not have any sort of evolutionary force acting on it.

Am I in any way correct here? And if so why is this idea bullshit? (Im assuming it is otherwise the whole theory of evolution could be somewhat screwed)

I'd love to argue with you on this topic, but alas! I saw a documentary on the topic a few months ago that fairly soundly debunked the whole irred. complexity thing. Whilst it sounds like a wonderful theory, there aren't actually that many examples that its proponents are able to trot out. Their holy grail was some type of microscopic organism with a propellor of sorts for moving around, but the Darwinists were able to show that the different sections of the mechanism were in fact viable evolutionary steps in and of themselves. (I just cross-referenced with Wikipedia and it seems what I'm talking about is the "flagella" of some bacteria - in fact, the Wiki article is quite good in general http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducable_complexity )

I've had similar experiences of people quoting this 'pseudoscience' as proof that the theory of evolution is flawed. In my case it was someone who really should know better, my GP! He told me that one of the processes in the human body which is vital to our survival (something along the lines of blood clotting) has about 30 different stages to go through before there is any chance of it doing something useful. If you remove one of these stages the whole process falls apart. He sounded at the time as though he knew what he was talking about but he then went on to say that the only possible alternative was that God does exist! Which seemed a fundamentally flawed argument to me. Even if the theory of evolution as we understand it at the moment is wrong that is not proof of God!

I have also heard recently about the idea mentioned previously in this thread that blood coagulating is a process involving some 30 or so stages, each of which is absolutely vital to the process and it is therefore irreducibly complex. I haven't yet seen or heard anything to disprove this idea!

The bottom line is this: if indeed God exists, and God is supposedly all powerful, then that must mean that if he willed evolution or anything else it would happen. This means that no matter what scientific evidence we can provide, we cannot deduce that there is no God or creator, because if he is the God worthy of the name God he can create anything he wants.

I believe the basic premise of irreducible complexity is flawed. Take the following analogy:

You have a lottery ticket in 10 to the 10th power with a 10 digit identification code that's worth 2 million dollars. Your chances of getting this ticket is 1 in 10 to the 10th power (10 trillion?).

Of course, if you do get the winning ticket, all 10 digit will match. However there are also tickets out there that have 9, 8, 7, etc matching numbers. But they are not the One ticket.

Similarly, the earth is that one planet that has everything for life: inhabitable environment, development of early semi-metabolic carbon-based compounds, and the like, similar to the 10 digits required for the winning lotto, even while there are extraterrestrial landmasses that satisfy only a few of these requirements.

Thus, if we accept the views of irreducible complexity theory, we are then stating that due to the complexity of the lotto code, that the satisfaction of all 10 digits are too miniscule for anyone to get that ticket. Of course, common sense tells us that this can not be true because there will definitely be that one winning ticket.

Of course many people will contend that the chances for the satisfaction of life is much more miniscule than those of the lottery ticket, but that's when we have to take things into perspective. Remember, whereas the analogy is limited by the population on earth, the universe is infinitely huge, therefore, no matter what the chances of life are, the universe is vast enough to outweigh it.

Ya know, this argument has gone on forever and will continue to. There's huge evidence from both sides and that's why. I am fairly certain that the basis of the Christian faith is just that....faith. Pure, blind, unquestioning faith. No proof required. If it is in the Bible a true Christian will accept it as fact without question. To some that may seem to be naaive or even stupid but that's the way it is. Faith.

All i'm saying is that if he could click his fingers and make whatever he wants, why would there even be a process?

Ours is not to reason why blah blah blah... Maybe God just wanted to see what would happen once he had got the ball rolling. After all if you can just click your fingers and instantly get whatever you want life is going to get pretty dull.